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12.4.10The Prandial Programme for Prim and Trim Prima DonnasPrunes, prawns, pralines, and prosecco.
8.4.10I Ordered Precisely What I Wanted2.4.10'Yesterday Pussy Killed a Rat''Yesterday pussy killed a rat. To-day she saw Freddie's new white rat and thought it was the ghost of the rat she had killed the day before.'
From Mr Punch's Book for Children (London, 1902), by Charles Pears. 22.3.10Strange Playmates'This cat and Dutch guinea pig are very fond of playing hide and seek together.' From The Country-Side: A Wildlife Magazine, 19 January 1907.
On the same page, 134, there is an advert for 'Daily Mail: The Naturalist's Daily Newspaper.' That's changed slightly. 2.3.10Ideal CommunionA graph depicting ideal sexual communion (stimulation against time), from my well-thumbed copy of Theodoor Hendrik van de Velde's Ideal Marriage: Its Physiology and Technique (New York, 1930).
24.2.10In a Shower Cap16.2.10D. G. Rossetti and the WombatsFrom George Birkbeck Hill's Letters of Dante Gabriel Rossetti to William Allingham, 1854–1870 (New York, 1897):
'Some time in the following year [1861] Rossetti wrote to Madox Brown:—"Dear Brown, Lizzie and I propose to meet Georgie and Ned [Mr. and Mrs. Burne-Jones] at 2 p.m. to-morrow at the Zoological Gardens—place of meeting the Wombat's Lair." The wombat had a strange attraction for Rossetti. On September 15, 1869, he wrote to his brother:—"Will you thank Maggie for her most complete information about the Passover, also Christina for the Shrine in the Italian taste which she has reared for the wombat. I fear his habits tend inveterately to drain architecture." Six days later he wrote:—"The Wombat is 'A Joy, a Triumph, a Delight, a Madness.'" Madox Brown used to tell how at Rossetti's house one day at dinner, the wombat, "who occupied a place of honour on the épergne, descending unobserved during a heated discussion, devoured the entire contents of a valuable box of cigars."' 16.1.10DesultorSince time immemorial (2004, actually), the (rubbish) tagline of erikkennedy.com has been 'desultory.' This has never meant 'irregularly shifting,' 'unsteady,' or 'unmethodical.' It has always meant 'like a desultor.' This definition of that word, from William Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (London, 1st ed. 1842), is as good as any:
'desultor ("aprobates"), literally "one who leaps off," was applied to a person who rode several horses or chariots, leaping from one to the other. As early as the Homeric times, we find the description of a man, who keeps four horses abreast at full gallop, and leaps from one to another, amidst a crowd of admiring spectators. (Il. xv. 679–684.) In the games of the Roman circus this sport was also very popular. The Roman desultor generally rode only two horses at the same time, sitting on them without a saddle, and vaulting upon either of them at his pleasure. (Isid. Orig. xviii. 39.) He wore a hat or cap made of felt. The taste for these exercises was carried to so great an extent, that young men of the highest rank not only drove bigae and quadrigae in the circus, but exhibited these feats of horsemanship. (Suet. Jul. 39.) Among other nations this species of equestrian dexterity was applied to the purposes of war. Livy mentions a troop of horse in the Numidian army, in which each soldier was supplied with a couple of horses, and in the heat of battle, and when clad in armour, would leap with the greatest ease and celerity from that which was wearied or disabled upon the back of the horse which was still sound and fresh. (xxiii. 29.) The Scythians, Armenians, and some of the Indians, were skilled in the same art.' 1.12.09'The Cat on the Keyboard'It's just occurred to me that I have something to add to a popular (tired) Internet meme. Re Keyboard Cat, see the sheet music for 'The Cat on the Keyboard,' by Harry Stafford (London: Francis, Day & Hunter, 1915).
2.11.09'Your minds are clogged up with tea bags!'Let's face it. Who among us is not an angry young man, even now, in 2009?
From 'playlet' Look Back in Hunger (a parody of John Osborne's Look Back in Anger), broadcast as a sketch on the radio version of Hancock's Half Hour, 8 April 1958 (MP3 here): * * * mother: Would you like a cup of tea, Jimmy? jim: Tea? Tea?! Is that your answer to it all? Tea? The panacea of the middle class! The answer to all the problems facing mankind today? Have a cup of tea, Jim! You both make me sick. You're dead, both of you. You're both mentally dead. Your souls are drowned in tea. Your minds are clogged up with tea bags. You're like two slop basins swimming around in a sea of tea! Just like this country, the whole rotten system, stained in a tea of apathy! father: What's he mean, Mum? mother: I don't think he wants a cup of tea. mother: Would you like a cup of coffee, then? jim: Coffee? Coffee?! Is that your only alternative to the stagnant mess that's slowly choking you, a cup of coffee? mother: No. We've got some cocoa, I think. * * * Etc. If you don't understand why this is funny, that's okay, but something is wrong with you. Scads of episodes of this programme are available at the Internet Archive. |
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